That doesn't explain why people in the poorest countries dress better than Americans. People living in the slums of India/Nigeria/Brazil are more likely to have a collared shirt and dress pants than an American going to work in an office.
I see two things happening here: (1) American spending less on clothing and (2) Americans having less self-pride in their attire and presentation.
I've spent a fair amount of time in Latin American countries, and a real sure-fire way to identify tourists is to look for people poorly-dressed or those who look like they just don't care about how they look.
E.g., despite much of Mexico being quite hot, you will almost never see a local Mexican wearing shorts, even on beaches. Tee-shirts maybe but almost always a freshly-washed button-up shirt. (Or a swimsuit if they're swimming obviously.) This is true of other Latin countries too in my travels. It's really humbling to see.
It's not "self pride" its a bucking of the trend of what "looks good" .
It's not that I cannot afford to wear suits. Its that I dont like suits. Add in the marginal cost difference and I'd rather wear a tshirt. It's the market punishing the inefficiency of requiring your workers (or date) to dress in a certain manner when it adds no true value.
> It's not that I cannot afford to wear suits. Its that I dont like suits.
I think you prove my point (and it's not a bad thing!)
Sociology is interesting. A suit is traditionally a sign of "I invest in my clothes and therefore I have self-pride." (It's also a sign that you don't have to do hard/dirty labor.) It seems culturally America has decided that this is out-dated and are choosing to focus less on clothes as a sign of pride. This doesn't the pride isn't there, just that the ways of showing and seeing it have changed for some or most.
Some people will always think a tee-shirt or shorts look worse than a button-up and pants. It's a personal sentiment for sure.
If GP were heavily dependent on his/her job and in an environment where wearing suits is required, whether he/she likes suits would be completely irrelevant. Only because he/she apparently has a certain amount of power in their job (for example due to a sought-after skill like being a programmer) can this norm be overturned.
Over the decades, a suit has morphed from "I have power" to "I conform to the norm (and therefore I don't have power)" and with that change it is also apparent why people would want to not wear suits in an environment that traditionally required them.
I'm sure some people wear clothing to signal status, but that shouldn't be your primary reason for choosing one article of clothing over another. A man wearing pants and a button-up shirt looks objectively more appealing than a man in a t-shirt and shorts. Suits and business casual clothing are designed to accentuate the physical features of the person wearing them. The way the "V" of a button-up shirt opens up at the top - this frames the face and draws attention to it. A sport coat can broaden the shoulders and thin the waist. When a properly fitting suit or business casual outfit comes together in the right way, it makes the wearer look pleasing, not distracting, and not like they're trying to make some status statement. They just look nice.
Location may factor in here. They may look nice in NYC but they probably wish they could wear whatever they wanted (Zuckerberg) in Southern California.
Only lawyers and bankers dress fancy everyday here. And not even all bankers.
My view of suits has always been, "I work in a profession that requires me to wear this symbolic clothing."
I've avoided these kinds of careers because I want to be graded on my skill, not my ability to dress well. And suits are uncomfortable, and I like to be comfortable.
As a native of Scandinavia I too have experienced the trend of people claiming their right to be judged on skill rather than background or appearance. Here however, it is often argued that the right to be judged on skill and compatibility, and therefor being able to dress to ones own preferences is earned only when you have proven to be a) greatly over-qualified and b) of a high enough age and/or c) with an ethnicity, gender or other background factors that conform with the existing idea of what a professional in the specific field looks and acts like.
Yeah but when you think about it, you’re probably still working in an industry that frowns upon pajamas in the workplace. Just because it’s OK to not wear a suit doesn’t mean that people aren’t judging you.
FWIW I see a necktie as a fancy leash and collar (and it's just as comfortable to wear one). I'm nearly 30 and the only time I've worn my dumb suit is when going to a funeral.
I was in Mexico last week near Cancun and observed exactly that. I always saw the locals with jeans and a nice shirt. There's no way I could do that in 85F weather.
Oftentimes when you buy local cloth you find out that they are comfortable for the weather. Long light jeans looking pants can protect you from sun and it is not more hot in them then in shorts. I have jeans for winter and jeans for summer and while they look very similar, their warmth is much different.
Yup yup I learned this in Australia. Bloody hot but I found keeping the sun off your skin actually kept me cooler despite wearing more layers. That and the added benefit of reduced UV or whatever else smashes you in the sunshine (I love the outdoors but tend to burn quickly in direct sunlight).
On more recent trips I've been trying to adopt more local customs including not wearing shorts. It's actually not that bad - if you choose lighter fabrics and don't lay around in the sun on the beach you may not mind pants. Added benefit of sun protection too.
Then there are locals who wear heavy black-cotton pants and poly-blend long-sleeve button-up shirts while walking around the asphalt streets on hot-humid days. They make me want to pass out :)
I think most of ^^ are actually corporate dress-codes (plus perhaps lack of resources to buy non-work clothes) but I've not had reason to strike up a conversation about that.
I think you are exactly right, that are really adaptations the we make both learn and make over time in different climates.
I lived in central Africa for four years after growing up in New England. Adjusting to the climate was partly just a matter of time there, but also learning the unwritten rules. For example, if I met a friend on the street, we would not even think of starting to chat in direct sunlight, we would always look for some shade first. I also learned to walk much more slowly and really minimize the heat that my body was generating.
Vice versa, I have now lived in Vermont for twenty years and every year I am amazed how I start looking in my closet for a jacket the first evening that it hits 40 degrees, and yet the same temperature in February means my kids are wearing shorts and t-shirts to school that day and I am grilling steaks in flip-flops.
That's interesting. Maybe even more-so (at least for me) since Brazil is a latin-american country but one with Portuguese roots as opposed to Spanish. I don't know if the different types of colonialism hundreds of years ago can really account for pants-vs-shorts but it's fun to play with the idea.
Is a vertical row of buttons the dividing line between caring about appearance and not caring about appearance? Or can we say that as a society we decide what is acceptable to wear in public? If it's socially acceptable to wear shorts and a t shirt, and I wear nice, clean shorts and a t shirt, your conclusion is that I don't care about how I look? That's some serious mental gymnastics. You could reasonably say that I look like I have different clothing preferences.
Downvoting because I think you took my comment in poor-faith. I didn't say wearing shorts means you don't care how you look - imho shorts look fine when it's customary. I said that wearing pants despite shorts being a possibility does show how much you care.
So, as you said, shorts are customary in the US but not in Mexico.... how does that translate into less self-pride in the US? That is just a different custom of dress. Are you arguing that 'self-pride' is measured by how uncomfortable you make yourself?
I'm probably bringing my own US biases in, but I think objectively that more comfortable => less pride in appearance. Not less pride overall just pride in appearance.
(You're not a bad person because you only wear cargo shorts! You just don't value your appearance as much as somebody who always wears suits.)
I'd love to learn of (and maybe live in) a culture that thinks elastic-waist sweatpants show a sense of pride rather than somebody who (for the moment) is choosing comfort over appearance.
I just don't see that making sense. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I've never seen a person in a suit and thought they must have extra "pride" in their appearance. I mean, anyone can look decent in a (tailored) suit. It's easy. it's a standard corporate outfit because you don't have to think too hard about it. If anything I assume suit wearers don't have enough confidence to pull of a more individualistic look competently.
Meanwhile I see some of the pics from r/streetwear, and those folks have pride! Sweatpants and all, I can appreciate that there is an actual aesthetic there and that their outfits fit their body types and daily needs (especially for techwear).
Nothing makes comfort or lack of traditional formality unstylish in itself, other than biases and cultural gatekeeping at least. Dirty clothes are lazy of course, but so long as your clothes actually fit you and are clean + coordinated, its possible to have pride in your style and be comfy. Even if suit afficianados sneer, if you like it and others like it, you can be proud.
I think his point is making a big assumption that replies are bucking - dressing more traditionally formal != pride in appearance. In fact, as the sibling comment to yours points out - that's not the case at all. Being individualistic, whether that's in a stylish suit or an outfit from /r/streetwear, shows pride in one's appearance. I see a man in a printed tshirt and a man in a boring, unexciting button down equally as far as "pride in appearance" goes
It's all subjective for sure. What I find interesting is that some cultures show a preference for clothes that are (imho) somewhat objectively less comfortable. Pants in humid climates. Suits at all. The history behind why things became the norm is interesting. This article shows how America is changing. This isn't a bad or good thing - it's just an interesting thing.
Some counters to the comfortable / looking good tradeoff - it's not that simple:
- higher quality, tailored suits are much more comfortable than simple ones, (or even jeans really) and look slightly better
- good kilts look great and are more comfortable to wear than any trousers
- humid climates are usually sunny - it's sometimes easier to wear a really light long sleeve / trousers to keep the sun away from skin
- very humid climates, like Singapore are so warm people just try to stay inside and almost every place has AC set to ~19°C, so either you're well dressed, or you're cold
- look at some pictures of people in Melbourne - casual style there can look way better than suits
> That doesn't explain why people in the poorest countries dress better than Americans.
This is a non-sequitur: all of gp's points apply to people in the US. Cost of living, rate of change of income, fashion/dressing culture and price of clothes (absolute, and relative to income) are very different between countries - so I do not see the point of comparing at all.
I'm from Nigeria and the idea that the poor among us dress well is news to me. If anything, dressings standards have fallen year in year for the past decade. People simply do not have disposable income.
Probably fewer "outfits" (count of pants or shirts).
But in my travels the outfits are all of quality (highest that the person could afford or find) and they are all very clean.
I had an hour-long conversation with a Guatemalan woman about how she hand-washes her whole family's shirts and pants every day because they each only have two sets - one for today and one for tomorrow. She took great pride in how well-dressed and clean her family was despite them not having the resources for many clothes, a washing machine, or the luxury of not having to do hard, dirty work on a regular basis.
